@Adam For this use case, you could simply use Regex validation instead of the built-in character count function. Here’s how to set it up:
^.{1,10}$
This regex will match any string that has at least 1 character and no more than 9 characters, effectively allowing inputs that are less than 10 characters long. I Asked ChatGPT to come up with this pattern, but you can change it to any limit you like.
And here’s how the form looks to the end user:
The error message will only show up when the user goes above the limit.
Let me know if this helps!